Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...Smith has written many dramas over the years dealing with Black history, many of which premiered at the Goodman and Victory Gardens Theaters. This particular one, though, premiered in 2022 at the Indiana Reportory Theatre, another of his favored homes. Regardless of theater, we have a distinguished oeuvre from this Chicago-born playwright. I've been a fan of his work across the Midwest for decades, and while this play is more modest in size and scope than some of Smith's dramas (it was from a commission to write a two-character play during the pandemic), its concision is actually one of its strengths. That's viably the case when directed by Chuck Smith (not to be confused with the author) and with actors of the experience and quality of Odom and Buckley, both of whom tear up American Blues' brand-new 137-seat stage in a former drugstore on Lincoln Avenue."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...Smith, the director, keeps the intensity level high throughout, tempering it with moments of undeniable humor. The result is a taut, troubling tale that de-deifies a nearly mythic figure in U.S. History while at the same time giving voice to the millions the Founders didn't include as equals even as they declared independence and equality for all."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...Smith's play starts almost as a buddy road comedy, with two men who know each other well but are already on each other's nerves bickering over every small hiccup and annoyance (including a never-seen blind mule, Phineas). But over two hours and two acts, it becomes a poignant meditation on their lives and the compromises they and others like them had to make to survive in a society that was oppressive at best, and deadly at worst."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...History buffs will find some very interesting conversations in what Smith has brought to the stage. One learns a great deal about the period when slavery was the norm and owners had relationships with slaves which bore children. Madison’s story is powerful. Israel was a footman for President Jefferson and was sold leaving his family behind. When slavery was abolished his life went on, and these two men were friends, Madison granting Israel several acres of land in Ohio, where they had moved."
Chicago Theatre Review - Recommended
"...Two middle-aged African-American men journey to Monticello in 1866. It's mid-November and turning cold. Winter is coming to the mountainous region. The Civil War is over but, despite the Emancipation of Slavery, Black men and women still aren't being treated as equal citizens of the United States. They don't have the same rights as their White neighbors and still bear the scars caused by the trauma of slavery."
Third Coast Review - Highly Recommended
"...Two middle-aged Black men, both formerly enslaved, visit Monticello the year after the Civil War ends. They’re not there as tourists to explore the majesty of Thomas Jefferson’s estate or the ingenuity of his inventions. They have arrived because one of them is looking for his brother and the other wants to reclaim what is rightfully his. Their fact-based story is brilliantly told in Charles Smith’s The Reclamation of Madison Hemings at American Blues Theater. The director is Chuck Smith, a Blues Theater ensemble member."
City Pleasures - Highly Recommended
"...As playwright and director respectively, Charles Smith and Chuck Smith have often worked together. Their collaboration here seems particularly fruitful. Both deans of their crafts, they make this project sing with the wonder of music. And thanks to the considerable prowess of two marvelous actors in Buckley and Odom, Israel G. Jefferson and J. Madison Hemings are transformed into unforgettable icons of American history."
NewCity Chicago - Recommended
"...“The Reclamation of Madison Hemings,” the Chicago premiere of a two-man play by Charles Smith at American Blues Theater, is a thoughtful, spare, well-acted and beautifully staged show."
